FDR monument highlight of local speller’s daily tour

May 28, 2003

By Darrel Todd Maurina

Editor’s Note: This is the fourth in a series of daily reports from Michael Martinez, the 13-year-old Tucumcari Middle School student from Conchas Dam, who recently won the four-county Regional Spelling Bee sponsored by Freedom Newspapers of New Mexico. Martinez is in Washington, D.C., with his parents, Joe and Rita Martinez. He will compete today in the National Spelling Bee on Wednesday.

Michael Martinez continues to enjoy his trip to Washington, D.C., courtesy of the National Spelling Bee.
“Today we had to get up kind of early because we went on a tour, ‘Discover Washington,’” Martinez said. “We looked at a lot of the monuments, the Vietnam Memorial and the Korea Memorial.”
Martinez said the high point of his tour was the Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorial.
“They had a lot of quotes from FDR and they had manmade waterfalls and statues,” Martinez said. “I liked how it was set up and I liked mainly the quotes.”
Martinez said his favorite quote from Roosevelt was “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Uttered during his inaugural address on March 4, 1933, Roosevelt used the quote to rally a nation stuck in the depths of the Great Depression.
Other highlights of the tour included a trip to Union Station.
“It was the first time I’ve ever been to a train station so it was exciting,” Martinez said. “We had lunch there and we went back on the tour.”